


battle hymn of the republic

by iniquiticity



Category: 19th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF
Genre: Angst, F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-08 01:32:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11071266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iniquiticity/pseuds/iniquiticity
Summary: she knew them: the man, the boy, and the music box.





	battle hymn of the republic

**Author's Note:**

> this is little and yet incredibly sad story that plays with ambiguous pronouns. your constructive criticism is appreciated.

Occasionally she would hear the tinkling of tiny bells, and peek into the study, and see him sitting hunched in his chair. sometimes there would be weeping after the bells, though not always - and less often now, she thought, than previously. Sometimes she would hear the bells and then he would arise, as powerful as the day he had signed those very important document, and be inspired to commit to some task he had put off, as if to hear the demands of the voice that those bells represented, even if it had long past.

The bells belonged to a music box, woefully complex, masterfully constructed. She had no doubt that the item, which fit easily into his palm, had cost a fortune. The buyer, while successful, was in a constant stream of money issues, owed to his habit of helping out poor widows and penniless orphans. She could not have imagine how dumbstruck he must have been, to have been delivered such an elegant and magnificent gift, as it was - a carved little sword on a tiny wooden dais, and hidden in the stand the smallest bells she had ever seen, that run out a little melody if the handle on the side was turned. The small scale of it made it even more amazing; his palm, sized as it was, made it seemed like a toy fit only for a  for a heir-prince.

The gift had been delivered past their primes, yes -- after the issue with the whiskey taxes, and the boy had come back again, as he always did. He always did relish a fight, they agreed. he knew that his boy would do a perfect job. He had given the gift after that, long after their old bonfires had been reduced to smoldering coals. But even so those coals had never been extinguished, and required so little to be set alight again. A tender touch or a delicate kiss, and she could feel the heat. She did not mind it; a man required warmth, and often in many ways, and she did not begrudge him, or them. 

She had men and women she missed, yes, but she was sure she did not miss them like he missed his boys. He missed them with the ferocity he kept suppressed; he missed them with the rage of a storm and the hail of winter and the boiling heat of summer. Sometimes they would reappear, and the day would brighten like May sunshine. It was not that he was unhappy, when they were gone. He did not sulk in the darkness or write mournful poetry. He cared for her, as well, and no matter their attendance. He was different with them, and brilliant like the sun, and oh, when they left he was different. 

Many of them could not return. When the boys that could come left he thought of the boys that could not return and played his music box, over and over, and wept for all the things that had caused his boys to be taken. 

They had been in New York. She had been there too, which she was, sometimes. 

A boy had called his name, in his bright voice. The voice was the same, from before he had traded his military outfit for the drab politician’s jackets. In company of course, he was formal - mr. president, now, but often your excellency or general. but if they were at his home, or held in secret - the boy called him by his name. 

His name was unfamiliar, to most. His name had not been attached to betrayals and aches. There was a hope to it - an age to it, a forgottenness to it, of days before their present days. 

_'I acquired you a gift for your home,'_ The boy had said, and given him the wrapped box. The gifts they usually got were political; the boy was terrible at politics. He was brilliant and decisive and powerful but he was terrible at politics and he had needed them, and those very politics would lead him to abandon them. He could not give a political gift, and would not. 

 _‘Have you?'_ he had asked, in his voice, hard and curious and tender. He was uncommonly tender with his boys, like he was with her. He unfolded the wrapping and saw the little box. He stared; he was not given gifts like this. 

_‘You should play it and think of me,’_ the boy said. This was very much like the boy, who enjoyed being thought of. Perhaps if he would not have minded being forgotten, he would have been more than a music box, in these days. 

_‘I will,’_ he had said, and clicked back the little lever, and heard the bells. 

They had kissed tender in the moonlight. She knew how he held the boy; he held her that way. They all wished that they could always be together, but it was impossible; the boy had a family, and many jobs; he had his home, and a particular reputation to uphold. So he had taken the box to his home. and he played it and thought of the boy. 

He had received the letter, about the boy’s end, and played the music box, and played, and played and wept. The thing did not break under the strain of this use; the boy had not, either. It had not only been the boy who could not stand to be forgotten; there was the boy trapped across the sea; the boy after it had all been over; the boy who had had a fever; the boy, the boy, the boy, 

She sat in front of him and saw where the tears had left a shine across his worn face. She loved that face more than she had loved anything else; that he permitted her to see him like this, seeming as aged as wine and as soft as cheese, said so much about her, and him, and them. So many did not know him, could not comprehend him, as he was now. She knew, and he had known.

“Martha,” he said. She had always loved his brevity - how he could compress so much into something so little. He did not need to talk about the boys, and the trades, and the tender kisses, and the war, and the letters, their irreplaceable gifts. He could put it all in the way he said her name. 

Once she had reached with a handkerchief and dabbed his face, but no longer; there was no reason or sense in hiding. Instead she only sat, and touched his knee, and looked up at him. 

“It is only well,” he said, and he turned from her back to the music box, and played the little bells again, as fresh drops stained his lap, “that he be released from his persistent anxiety.” 

He often said this, as if he could imagine reasons that his boys had been taken from him, and could not be returned. He required an excuse.

For all the things he had given - the many years, and his body, which despite the apparent strength was plagued by a endless number of aches - and the silly newspaper duels with men he had once respected and once respected him - and the fights with the people, and the country --

\-- he had said, and she knew it to be true, he would have done it all again for the boys. but even the boys could not stay his. he was left with only tinkling bells.

“Oh, George,” She said said, and tilted his face up, and kissed him where the boys had. 

He put his hand on top of the box, and pressed on it, to stop the bells. “I should rejoice, that you remain,” he said, and met her eyes. 

“I would not like you to forget them,” she said, and she put her hands within his, and started the music again. When it played it seemed like more pieces of him remained; she would have traded anything, to have the whole man back, even if it meant her piece became smaller.

For a long time they listened to the music, and he clutched her tightly, because the bells did not fill the empty space where the boys had been.


End file.
